Angels Of Mercy

We are going through
the most challenging crisis since World War II and one of the worst periods in
healthcare in more than half a century. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has
led to a perilous time and is practically holding much of the world firmly in
its grip. On the other hand, by highlighting the influence of healthcare
workers, the pandemic has also produced a model of heroism that reflects the
best of humanity.

“Whoever saves one
life, saves all of humanity,” reads a verse from the Quran and in the present
devastating scenario, these words serve as fuel for an impossible mission – a
mission of care and compassion undertaken by healthcare professionals in every
corner of the world in these morbidly tense times.

They return day after
day to the scene of some of the worst medical room emergencies. These are
ordinary people whose work takes them to the extremes of human experience. Each
day brings them new traumas, and still they rush in to help.

The influence of the
healthcare workers is felt in the movement they are leading, the examples they
are setting and the barriers they are breaking.

As the situation
worsens, healthcare workers risk their lives on the front lines. In the war
against the aggressive virus that is the novel coronavirus, our healthcare
workers are our brave soldiers.

In an age where
countries emptied their coffers to spend on weapon acquisition and increase
military spending, it is the healthcare workers who have come to personify the
heroism and tragedy of the coronavirus pandemic.

In an anonymous
letter written by an intensive care anaesthetic doctor and published by The
Guardian, the doctor explains they are dealing with a “different cohort of
patients – ones who are sicker for longer and who might not survive.”

Take a moment to look
at the situation from a healthcare worker’s perspective.

They are dealing with
a strain of virus that is still pretty much a stranger – an invisible enemy.
Day in and day out they are caring for patients whose struggle to breath
because of alarmingly low oxygen levels are visible in their panic-ridden eyes.
Because a lot of these patients are all alone and don’t have their families
close by, they rely on the doctors and nurses to not only make their medical
decisions but also provide emotional support. This can be a lot of burden for
medical professionals.

But even if they are
stretched, they are going the extra mile to make the patients under their care
feel human. When the patients are dying, they hold their hands to make the
ordeal bearable.

In the past few days,
we have also heard of multiple instances where the doctors or nurses on shift
are using their own mobile phones and iPads to help the relatives of patients
see their loved ones a final time.

Needless to say, the
care they provide goes beyond just the cocktail of drugs and the paraphernalia
of equipment.

As a senior subeditor
in the photos team of a global news organization, I sift through hundreds of
images depicting the ongoing COVID-19 situation around the world on a regular
basis. No one image is similar. Every photo has a story to tell and an emotion
it evokes in me as a viewer and as an image curator.

It was hope that I
felt when I saw photos of children playing on the streets of Spain after they
were allowed to go outside for one hour each day. Images of a group of
Americans protesting the stringent stay-at-home measures angered me. A profound
sadness filled within me when I saw photos of a single worshipper in a mosque
at the start of Ramadan or mass being held without any devotees in churches around
the world during the Holy Week.

However, the photo
that left me utterly heartbroken was a close-up shot of a medical professional
at the end of a 13-hour shift. She had just taken off her face shield and mask.
She was drenched in sweat. Her eyes looked dead with fatigue. Her face was
bruised and her nose bridge raw because of the personal protective goggles she
had been wearing.

The rawness of the
subject combined with the green hospital background sent a chill down my spine.

Since then, of
course, several nurses and doctors have taken to social media to share selfies
sans their personal protective equipment after long and gruelling shifts.

As I came across more
of these images, one after the other, there was this nagging thought that I
just could not dismiss. These medical professionals at least have protective
equipment to prevent possible contraction. What about those health workers who
have to make do with basic masks and single-use plastic raincoats or trash bags
as protective gowns?

On March 31, Reuters
reported that the shortage of protective gear in India has forced at least some
doctors to use motorbike helmets and raincoats.

A report by the Times
of India, dated April 23, highlighted the rise of a kind of pecking order in
the distribution of protective gear and allotment of residence facilities.
“Doctors are accommodated in hotels so that they don’t have to worry about
infecting their families when they return home. However, nurses and technicians
are made to stay in hostels and guesthouses and are transported to and from
their place of residence in packed buses, defeating the whole concept of social
distancing,” the report read.

Our understanding of
healthcare workers is often limited to just doctors and nurses. It is important
to note that the network of professionals working hard to safeguard us also
includes technicians, healthcare assistants, clinical staff, hospital domestic
cleaners, administrators, radiographers, hospital porters, food service
workers, pharmacists, biomedical scientists, security guards, military forces
deployed to set up hospitals and deliver aid, and more.

The Indian Express
reported on April 1 about growing complaints of discrimination faced by
cleaners. As per the reports, while nurses and doctors were being given N-95
masks and proper protection gear, cleaners were forced to adjust with “inferior
quality knee-length gown and 2-ply or 3-ply mask.”

As per the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), India’s total
health spending (out-of-pocket and public) at 3.6 percent of GDP fares much
below several other countries. According
to the OECD Health Statistics 2019, updated in November 2019, the global
average of spending on health as a share of GDP by OECD countries remained at
around 8.8 percent in 2018. Developed nations like US and Germany have spent
16.9 percent and 11.2 percent, respectively. Even among the economic bloc of
countries that form BRICS, India is the least spender. In 2019-20, India’s public health spending
was a mere 1.29 percent of the GDP.

At the time of
writing this piece, a total of 1,147 had succumbed to the novel coronavirus in
India alone. The global death toll stood at 2,33,388. People are suffering and
dying needlessly. The current scenario that we have found ourselves in is an
affirmation that we were not taking the time and investing the resources needed
to protect ourselves, our loved ones and our communities from all possible
contingencies.

This is a crucial
step that needed to have been taken.

Why? Because we haven’t
been hit by a truly devastating pandemic in a long time. For most of us, this
doesn’t follow a precedent. This is as novel as it gets. As individuals, we let
our guard down and kept mum when leaders defunded the services needed to
protect us. And now those that bear the brunt of this callousness include
people like you, me and healthcare professionals.

The risk to humanity
of continued foot dragging is huge.

Inadequate
preparedness programmes combined with insufficient investments required to fund
and sustain them mean we as a country have become woefully susceptible to a
major healthcare crisis.

Some naysayers might
debate that this is what the health workers signed up for when they joined this
profession. Technically, yes, but that’s not wholly true. They didn’t sign up
for a situation where they did not have the right supplies.

A global shortage of
supplies and equipment is not something they anticipated. The efficiency of the
supply chains and the availability of essential medical kits should have been
vetted and vetted repeatedly when the news of coronavirus first came out of
China. Full four months into the catastrophe, it is fully evident not one
leader or one government had the foresight to anticipate and predict the
incoming load on healthcare systems around the world.

This leads to the
question: Who will help the helpers?

Medical staff requires
a steady supply of personal protective equipment kits, gloves and N95
respirator masks in order to carry out their responsibilities without fearing
for their lives. However, PPE is in short supply in many countries.

In Germany, medical
workers are highlighting the dearth of protective equipment and extreme working
conditions by posting photos of themselves in a naked state, partially covered
by medical equipment, paperwork and other props. The idea is that without the
required protective gear they are as vulnerable to the virus as they would be
if they were naked.

"We are your
GPs. To be able to treat you safely, we need protective gear. When we run out
of the little we have, we look like this," reads the statement on their
website "Blanke Bedenken."

Hospitals in India
are faced with a similar kind of acute shortage and have been issued directives
to ensure judicious use of personal protection equipment kits. Oftentimes, the
judiciousness employed in using these essential protective layers means that
more health workers end up not getting access to it.

In the month of
March, on a specific Sunday at 5 p.m., there was a whole spectacle of clapping
and plate-banging and bell-ringing in honour of the healthcare workers in our
country. We will not go into the ultimate grotesqueness of the theatrics, but
we do need to question the efficacy of that step. If, after that entire circus,
some of us have not learned to treat healthcare workers with respect, then of
what use was that tamasha? There have been numerous reports of doctors and
nurses being ostracized from their residential complexes because they have come
in contact with COVID-19 patients. It is insulting and upsetting when people
are visibly scared of healthcare workers because of the nature of their work.

Perhaps the most
horrifying incident was that of people violently hindering the burial of a
doctor who died of COVID-19. Dr Simon Hercules was ultimately buried close to
midnight by a fellow doctor. Whither went the dignity and respect offered to
medical workers during the theatrics of plate-banging, one wonders.

It is crucial to
understand that the challenges that healthcare workers face do not cease to exist
once they are out of their workplace. On top of the same pandemic-related issues
we all are experiencing, health workers have added challenges such as the worry
that they may have contracted the illness and passed it unknowingly to their
family, unusually high work pressure (oftentimes caused as their colleagues
fall sick or are quarantined), changing protocol, guidelines and health
advisories from higher authorities, deduction of salary if they do not report
to work, no extra pay for extra hours put in, acute shortage of lifesaving
medical equipment such as ventilators and hospital beds, and the moral dilemma
of deciding which patient gets the lifesaving care and who does not.

In spite of these and
several other challenges and the fears they may harbour, medical staff continue
to demonstrate a brave front and care for their patients with compassion.

And all of this takes
a toll on their mental well-being. Personal protection equipment can control
the chances of getting infected by the virus, but they are not enough for
protection against emotional and mental devastation caused by the pandemic. As
a country we haven’t been vocal about mental health in general and now it could
be those in the health sector that bear the brunt of our complacency.

In New York, a top
emergency room doctor, who had been treating COVID-19 patients, suicided on
April 27. Her father later told media she witnessed “devastating scenes of the
toll the coronavirus took on patients.” “She tried to do her job, and it killed
her,” he said.

The severe blow our
collective mental health is taking during this lockdown time is a pandemic in
itself – one whose intensity will continue to play up in the coming years. It
is even more difficult for medical professionals who are witnessing the battle
between life and death on a daily basis. A psychiatry investigation, published
in the medical journal Jama Network in March, found that among a cross-section
of 1,257 health professionals who had come in contact with COVID-19 patients in
China, 71.5 percent were experiencing signs of distress, 50.4 percent signs of
depression, 44.6 percent signs of anxiety and 34 percent signs of insomnia.

As the lockdown periods
continue to be extended in several parts of the world and with no end in sight,
these feelings of despair will only seem to get darker.

From consultants to
cleaners, each health worker is putting themselves in harm’s way often without
the necessary equipment to protect themselves and treat many of their patients.
The least we can do right now is acknowledge their unswerving commitment even
in treacherous working conditions.

When will all this
end is still a difficult question to answer. But what we can definitely gather
from the lessons thus far is that when the country (and the world) crawls back
to its feet, it will be in most part due to the selfless service of our
healthcare professionals. When the history of 2020 is written, it is they that
will stand out. But once all this is over, how will we honour the sacrifices
and courage of frontline healthcare workers?

We can begin by
honouring them with respectable wages and humane working conditions. This is
what they deserve and by doing so we are communicating to them that they are
heroes not just during a pandemic but also when we have lived through the worst
crisis in modern history. Remember, we owe them our thanks and our lives.